The Altice-MSG dispute shows New York isn't immune to the broader RSN woes

If MSG Networks made a New Year's resolution to kick off 2025 by toning down any harsh rhetoric toward Altice, they broke it in 10 minutes.

MSG Networks and Altice (parent company of local cable provider Optimum) are embroiled in a dispute over carriage of the channel that airs New York Knicks, Rangers, Islanders and New Jersey Devils games in the tri-state area. Optimum subscribers lost access to MSG Network Wednesday, when the cable provider’s contract with the network expired before a renewal deal was signed.

In a press release that dropped at 12:10 a.m. ET Wednesday, MSG Networks issued a terse statement:

"As a last-ditch effort to save their struggling business at the expense of subscribers, Altice is trying to charge their customers more and give them less. They just raised prices – nearly 50% for current Optimum subscribers and 70% for new Optimum subscribers (after expiration of a promotional offer) for the package that had included MSG Networks – and cut access to the Knicks, Rangers, Islanders, Devils and more on MSG Networks. We offered Altice a number of fair and reasonable proposals that called for Altice to pay us less than last year. Altice rejected all of them, including our offer to keep MSG Networks on the air while we continued to try to reach a deal. We remain ready to negotiate in good faith."
- MSG Networks statement

Optimum said in a statement on Monday that “MSG Networks is demanding exorbitant programming fees – which could raise our customers’ cable bills.”

Wars of words between a regional sports network and a cable provider are nothing new, sadly, having played out in smaller markets across the U.S. over the last decade as cord-cutting ate into providers' subscriber bases. Knicks and Rangers games are available on MSG Networks via other providers. Expect the pressure on Optimum to follow as fans switch to DirecTV, Fubo and VPNs.

What makes this particular dispute worth watching? As Puck's John Ourand noted on his most recent episode of The Varsity podcast, the effect of cord-cutting in small to mid-sized markets like San Diego, Denver and Portland has now landed in the biggest media market in North America. Anyone who thought the New York market was immune to the broader RSN carriage woes is unfortunately wrong.

Meanwhile, Sphere Entertainment, the publicly traded parent company of MSG Networks, has been urged to get out of the RSN business altogether. Ourand pointed to a recent article from LightShed's Brandon Ross that called on Sphere — a $1.52 billion company — to cut the cord itself.

"MSG Networks will pay about $180 million for the rights to the Knicks and Rangers in 2025," Ross wrote. "That number is not going to be sustainable no matter what happens to MSG Networks in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.”

It's further proof that, like many things in New York, sports channels on cable television aren't any better than in the rest of the U.S. They're just more expensive.

Update (Jan. 6):

A spokesperson for Optimum sent this via email to The Big Lead to clarify its position in its dispute with MSG Networks: "Optimum has not raised rates by 50 / 70% for existing / new customers – those numbers are completely inaccurate."

Less than a quarter of Optimum subscribers with access to MSG Networks received any video rate increase at all; the majority of our customers saw no changes to their bill. Of that small group of customers, the average video rate event increase for all East Core Package subscribers (where MSG Networks was available) was less than $3.
Only a third of Optimum TV customers have watched even a single game on MSG Networks in the last year.
Nearly half of all Optimum subscribers that have access to MSG Networks have not tuned in at all over the last 12 months.

"Optimum feels strongly that only viewers that want to watch should, and non-viewers should not be forced to pay for content that they do not want. We tried to reach a deal with MSG Networks in which we accepted their requested rates and put them on a tier where just fans could watch; they said no. We have a number of solutions available for those customers who want continued access to MSG Networks’ content, and we encourage them to get in touch with us today to learn more about their options."